Contents

We're still a long way from the perfect PC. For our cover story, "Whizbang Boxes", we asked vendors to send us their most spectacular systems for evaluation, but not one of the systems meets my admittedly very high expectations for the ideal PC. Sure, some of them are amazingly fast. Some have great ease-of-use features. And some have terrific add-ons for video capturing and editing. But no machine has it all.

My perfect PC will have the fastest processor, lots of fast memory and hard drive space, and the fastest graphics system available. It will also have a terrific monitor, front- and back-accessible USB and IEEE 1394 ports, video capture and output ports, a writable DVD, and a wireless mouse and keyboard.

On the handheld side, most Palm-based devices and Pocket PCs have improved greatly in the past year, in terms of screen technology and expandability. But you still have to choose between simplicity (Palm) and programmability (Pocket PC). And high-speed, work- anywhere wireless remains a dream. No one has built the perfect handheld for me either.

Michael J. Miller's Forward Thinking Blog: forwardthinking.pcmag.com
Michael J. Miller is chief information officer at Ziff Brothers Investments, a private investment firm. From 1991 to 2005, Miller was editor-in-chief of PC Magazine, responsible for the editorial direction, quality and presentation of the world's largest computer publication.
Until late 2006, Miller was the Chief Content Officer for Ziff Davis Media, responsible for overseeing the editorial positions of Ziff Davis's magazines, websites, and events. As Editorial Director for Ziff Davis Publishing since 1997, Miller took an active role in...
More »